David Waldstreicher sought to show how local celebrations and political events reflected broader issues in Early America. When he looked at this portrait of this local New Haven official, he could have seen just another dry portrait of a vain man.  Instead, a small detail in this portrait cinched his broader argument. 

When Abraham Bishop decided to have his portrait painted..., he posed with the emblems of his office: the pen and ledger book he used as the newly appointed collector of the Port of New Haven. As in most contemporary portraits of provincial gentlemen, there is no explanation of these devices or any direct reference to the geographical or social setting. 

This painting, like Bishop himself, was going nowhere; anyone who saw it probably knew the sitter and where he sat. Yet the ledger book is open to a nearly blank page. Bishop, pen in hand, seems to have written only a curious notation: 162. 

This, the tally of electoral votes for Jefferson in the presidential contest of 1804, was apparently Bishop's proudest achievement. Like the Litchfield, Connecticut, newspaper that carried a similar notation on its masthead ("162 vs. 14"), Bishop wanted to be known for his faith in the many over the few, for his links to a national political movement, and for his untiring efforts to bring Connecticut over to the Jeffersonian side. 

David Waldstreicher. In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998, p. 182-3.